On 9/21/07, Dan Kegel <dank at kegel.com> wrote:
> (the two projects were the same originally, and split apart
> only after the world noticed just how illegal ReactOS's practices were).
These broad generalizations or downright libel statements prove more
inflammatory that then accusations of developer taint. I take great
objection to this as a lot of this crap happened under my watch.
1. Some developers practices might not be legal in the US. The project
has an policy statement that most developers followed. Others did not.
It happens. It was never taken to court and ultimately those
developers left anyway. If you know of a function in ReactOS that
looks suspicious feel free to send a note their way. I am sure they
will remove it. What happens if I say "Function foo looks like its
dirty and it made it in the Wine tree" Is wine forever tainted? Can
you point out case-law or a standard ANYWHERE ReactOS needs to follow
to make the Wine people happy? I can point to one standard and
Julliard already said he did not agree with it.
http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/
They even have a whole page for people that have SEEN proprietary sources
http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Reading-Non_002dFree-Code.html#Reading-Non_002dFree-Code
2. To Date Wine does not have a clearly identifiable policy statement
about what is Kosher and what is not and EVER FREAKING WEEK someone
asks a policy related question on wine-devel. Can I use ReactOS code?
Do we follow the same rules as the GNU coding standards? What is clean
room reverse engineering? What is the Audit thing I keep hearing
about?
3. How about, rather than blackballing a whole project or group and
causing guilt by association, we use the same standards for everyone
when submitting patches, codify them and let that be that. What
happens the day Wine gets a patch from a @microsoft.com email? Do we
blackball them if their corporate policy changes to allow a
contribution. I mean you know they make a compiler right? You know
they also submit patches to GCC for Interix right? I hope to God we
have a standard in place by then and a webform that allows that person
to say "I never had access to windows source that had analogous
functionality".
4. Do you think Vlad the Reverser from Russia sending a patch to
wine-patches is going to preface his patches saying "I reversed this"
or "I copied this"? No hes going to submit it and Julliard is going to
have to make a judgment call based upon if he knows the person, the
quality of the code and the planarity alignment.
I could go on but I am just ranting and angry because this keeps
coming up and the solution seems clear enough. Can we at least, while
the crickets chirp on the audit, get the SFLC to publish some bloody
standards we should all follow?
Thanks
--
Steven Edwards
"There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and
that is an idea whose time has come." - Victor Hugo